Pinball Wizard
by oneiromancer242
Summary: Sits between "Best I Can" and "Momma Bear" - a request from a reader to see more of the Father/Son adorableness that is Dadneto.


**For akl110998233, who wanted to know how Erik and Peter's Father-Son time went, and to see a little more of Peter's sensitive side. Here you are! Thanks to you and all the other lovely readers who have been leaving such encouraging feedback.**

Not for the first time that day, Erik wondered what the hell he thought he was doing. The boy walking beside him was uncharacteristically quiet, hands pushed into his pockets, and would have looked perfectly relaxed if not for the quick, darting looks he kept sending Erik's way. Finally, the older man spoke, feeling he ought at least to try something.

"I saw a Polish restaurant on my way over," he cleared his throat, feeling ridiculous for being so nervous, "looked good. Would you like to go there?"

Peter snorted unattractively, a habit Erik was already wishing he would break, and gave him a sidelong look filled with amused scorn

"If I want pierogi, I'll ask mom – she makes the best ever" the boy shrugged, "Can we go to Galaxy Burger? They have infinite ice-cream refills"

"Your mother said –"

"But it's my birthday!"

Something twanged hard inside Erik as Peter turned theatrically wide brown eyes to him. God but the boy knew how to play up to those huge, puppy-dog eyes he had. Though Erik had only known him briefly as yet, he was starting to get the distinct impression that his son could be a manipulative little swine.

"Your 26th, birthday," Erik reminded him, "You sound more like six when you whine"

Peter grinned even more mischeviously than Erik though possible, before adding a trembling lower lip to the wide eyes and saying

" _Pleeeeeeeeeeease?!_ Can we go? Can we? Can we? Canwecanwecanwecan-"

"Yes, alright!" Erik snapped, exasperated. He wondered how Magda managed this, "But you're having something proper to eat before you have _any_ ice cream. Clear?"

"Crystal" Peter smirked, lapsing back into silence that Erik couldn't help but think presaged something terrible. It was so unlike the boy to shut up for a few seconds. When they had arrived at the garish, neon-decorated burger joint he'd agreed to Erik had still been suspicious. There was something incredibly odd in the way Peter picked things up carefully, spoke so deliberately to the waitress who came to take their order, sat so still aside from the audible drumming of his feet on the floor. It had taken Erik several minutes to realise that this was Peter on his 'best behaviour'. He was trying his absolute damndest to be a normal boy out for a normal meal with his normal Dad on a totally normal Father's Day. The effort looked like it was killing him. Trying to break the tension, Erik cleared his throat hard and folded his hands on the table.

"How's the leg feeling?"

"I told you, fine. I can be right back to the Academy as soon as you like. Hurts a little sometimes, but it's cool, I'm sort of used to it now"

"You know, Peter, it's not my decision when you come back"

The boy was starting to get twitchier by the second, now drumming on the tabletop with his fingers so rapidly that they were a blur.

"You could ask though, couldn't you? You and the Professor seem pretty tight. He'd listen to you"

Saved from having to reply by the arrival of their food, Erik tried hard to focus his attention on his own plate and not the astonishing rapidity with which Peter dove into the huge burger, fries, and onion rings. He always ate as if he'd not seen food in weeks, and now and again it would bring back a very faint but painful memory of watching young men his age fight for scraps back in the camps.

"It'd be cool if you did get Xavier to take me back," he managed, between mouthfuls, "Mom tried to get me back into school, this one time. But they didn't listen to her"

Erik told himself that it was an offhand remark, just a train of thought, but the lowered lashes as he drew one finger across the plate seeking the last of the grease and ketchup said otherwise.

"What happened at school, if you don't mind me asking?"

The shrug he got in response was too defensive, Peter still didn't look up at him, resumed his drumming on the tabletop.

"Nothin'" he grunted, shrugged again, "Just these guys wouldn't leave me alone, and I kind of lost it with them a little"

"That's not grounds for permanent expulsion, surely?"

"Turn out it is"

That seemed to be the forcible end of that conversation, and taking the hint Erik backed off, tried to find something a little more neutral to talk about. It was more than a little awkward, having this strange fierce fondness for Peter whilst simultaneously knowing next to nothing about him. For a while, they had chatted around the safest subjects Erik could think of: music (Erik didn't have a clue who any of the odd-sounding acts Peter reeled off as his favourites were), sports (Peter hated watching sports, at least on that they agreed), television (Erik didn't even have a set, so that was short), until finally Peter had set aside the empty milkshake glass he'd been hoovering around and said:

"I pushed a lab bench over on them. It still had a bunch of… lab stuff on it. One of them got burned pretty bad. I didn't mean to hurt them so badly, I just…. I lost my temper I guess"

Again that little stab that Erik could not help at the wounded look in Peter's face. Erik knew instinctively that his assertion that he hadn't really meant to harm the bullies was the truth. The boy had many less-than-perfect qualities – his impatience, stubbornness and wilfulness to name a few – but Erik knew as if he could read the thoughts in his heart that there was not an ounce of cruelty or malice in him. So unlike Erik himself, who even at the thought of somebody persecuting his boy for whatever reason felt a dark stirring of hate and vengefulness. His tone was quiet, deliberately controlled as he asked

"What did they do to you?"

The reply was so petulant, blurted out with such irritation and powerlessness behind it, that Erik felt suddenly both deeply riled on his son's behalf and oddly amused.

"The assholes wouldn't stop making fun of my hair!"

"Well…." He eyed his son's wavy mop, forever falling in his eyes, "When you used to wear it long.."

"Not the style, man," Peter rolled his eyes, exasperated, "The colour. They wouldn't let up about how it was weird that I have silver hair, that I was weird anyway, and all sorts of other stuff. But mainly ragging on the 'do. I don't know why it got to me so much, I guess I'd just had enough of everything that day"

He shrugged yet again, more gently this time, chewed gently at his lower lip for a moment. Erik regarded him silently. It wasn't the worst thing he'd ever heard a Mutant bullied over of course, but it was bad enough – and one thing could lead to another so easily. First they might have made fun of his unusual colouration, then his grades, his clothes, his home life. Then it would be his abilities, then there would be no stopping the discrimination. That was how these sort of things go. Knowing Magda would throttle him if he praised the boy for acting violently, he kept his pride at Peter's defensive move to himself. All the same he gave the boy a fond smile

"I like your hair," he told him, "it's distinctive"

"I know, right?" with a touch of that (false?) arrogance returning, Peter ran a hand through his thick fringe as if he was in a shampoo advert, "It's awesome. So do you wanna play pinball? The tables here are okay, kind of slow, but they're fun"

Erik smiled at the boy's butterfly mind, always flapping away to another more interesting flower

"You'll have to teach me how to play, I'm afraid" he confessed, "I've… been a little out of the way for some time. I'm not certain I recall how these things work"

"No problem!" Peter grinned happily, delighted that there was at least one thing he could teach Erik, "but first, there's cookie dough"

"There's what?"

"Cookie dough – are you serious dude, you've never had cookie dough ice cream? What rock have you been hiding under?"

Briefly recalling Magda's warning, Erik hesitated a moment, then decided that he simply couldn't deprive the little nuisance of ice cream today of all days – and he had promised, after all. Paying for an Infinite bowl for him and trying to keep a half an eye out to make sure he wasn't shovelling it down too quickly, Erik listened patiently whilst his son reminded him how to play pinball in between huge mouthfuls of ice cream. Honestly, he would never know where Peter put it all. Standing aside after a while and gesturing to the machine for his son to have a turn, sure he would be much better and more practiced than Erik was.

"Did you say you find this table a little slow?"

"A bit, maybe"

"Perhaps I can fix that for you"

Erik effortlessly took control of the ball, vying against Peter's reflexes on the flippers. Smiling back warmly as his son gave him a huge, sticky-looking grin and turned his attention fully to the contest.

 **A/N Do I really need to tell you that "Pinball Wizard" is from the album "Tommy" by The Who? If you don't love that album, you haven't listened to it enough.**


End file.
